Sustainable hybrid nanocatalysts based on fundamentally new photoactive complexes with Earth-abundant metals

光致发光过渡金属配合物由于其与技术相关的光物理和光化学性质而受到越来越多的关注。特别是，对光催化、生物成像、化学传感、临床治疗、太阳能电池和电子设备等多用途试剂的新需求，要求光活性过渡金属配合物取得进展。直到最近，这种复合物主要依赖于昂贵和稀有的金属，如铂、钌或铱，以及镧系元素，如铕或镱。实现更可持续化学的愿望促使人们研究由地球上丰富的金属（例如铁、铬或钼）制成的光活性配合物。长期以来，对这些金属的光致发光配合物的研究相对较少，但现在的兴趣正在迅速增加。然而，为了使基于地球上丰富的金属的复合物适合日常生活的应用，一些基本的关键挑战仍有待解决。在这些重要发展的同时，纳米材料的突破促使科学家将光致发光（贵重）金属配合物引入无机纳米结构。这些新出现的杂化纳米催化剂表现出增强的光物理性质，有希望的催化性能和改进的多功能性。然而，到目前为止，这一特定的研究领域几乎完全集中在与贵金属的光活性配合物结合到纳米基体中，而几乎没有尝试使用由地球上丰富的金属制成的光活性配合物。为了填补这一重要的研究空白，申请人建议开发新型非均相纳米催化剂，其中包含新型光活性丰土金属配合物，与均相分子催化剂相比，具有更好的光致发光性能和更强大的催化活性。提出的新型混合纳米催化剂在照明、传感、能量转换和催化方面具有广泛和更可持续的应用潜力。

Photoluminescent transition metal complexes are receiving increasing attention because of their technologically relevant photophysical and photochemical properties. In particular, the emerging demands of versatile agents for photocatalysis, bioimaging, chemical sensing, clinical treatments, solar cells, and electronic devices necessitate advances in photoactive transition metal complexes. Until recently, such complexes relied mostly on expensive and rare metals, such as platinum, ruthenium, or iridium, as well as lanthanides like europium or ytterbium. The desire of performing more sustainable chemistry motivates research on photoactive complexes made from Earth-abundant metals including for example iron, chromium, or molybdenum. For a long time, only comparatively few studies focused on photoluminescent complexes with these metals, but now the interest is increasing rapidly. However, some fundamental key challenges remain to be solved in order to make complexes based on Earth-abundant metals fit for applications in daily life. In parallel to these important developments, breakthroughs in nanomaterials motivated scientists to introduce photoluminescent (precious) metal complexes into inorganic nanostructures. These newly emerging hybrid nanocatalysts exhibit enhanced photophysical properties, promising catalytic performance, and improved versatility. However, until now this specific research domain focused almost exclusively on the incorporation of photoactive complexes with precious metals into nanomatrices, whereas almost no attempts to employ photoactive complexes made from Earth-abundant metals have been made. To fill this important research gap, the applicant proposes to develop novel heterogeneous nanocatalysts incorporating new types of photoactive Earth-abundant metal complexes, which possess improved photoluminescence properties and more robust catalytic activities in comparison with the homogeneous molecular catalysts. The proposed fundamentally new class of hybrid nanocatalysts could have substantial potential for versatile and more sustainable applications in lighting, sensing, energy conversion, and catalysis.